


the road a vein about to break

by fiveaces



Series: come and go with me [3]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, teddy boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-20 20:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18532234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveaces/pseuds/fiveaces
Summary: The 11th of January brings with it rain and gloom and Tommy fleeing towards the docks, away from the centre of the city.





	the road a vein about to break

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from "Before You Came" by Faiz Ahmed Faiz: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/you-came (I highly suggest you read the poem, it's gorgeous. Keep in mind it's a translation, though)
> 
> Thanks so much to Vamillepudding and Crossdressing_Men for beta reading and helping me polish this off :)
> 
> This is in Alfie's POV! It seems to be that all the hurt/comfort fics I write are in Alfie's POV lawl.

When Alfie first met Tommy, he’d realised at that moment that there’s what everyone else does and there’s what Tommy does—and that there isn’t much similarity between the two. In short, Tommy comes from a different stock of boys that Alfie rarely has the pleasure to meet, and Tommy, for all the frowns that he sends in Alfie’s direction, cannot stop himself from gravitating towards Alfie whenever he’s around. 

It pleases Alfie to no end; he enjoys this, a lot. Moving to Birmingham with his sister and her husband, he’d thought, would mean being stuck in a dreary city he’d visited once before for a school trip, and hated to his very core. Camden Town, London, was where everything was at for Alfie. It was where he had had his first kiss and his first fuck, it was where he’d found Cyril as a puppy, and it was where he reared him up to be the dog he is today. Camden Town, London, is also where his mother died of cancer. But Alfie doesn’t like to think about that, and he pretends not to think about it today, too.

Of course, that was the whole point of Birmingham in the first place: to move away from the hands that Camden Town has dealt them and try for a fresh start in a city where no one knows their names. London is vibrant and ever growing, with a history that leads Americans across the Atlantic coming over for a visit. Birmingham, on the other hand, is a long, boring one. Even now, months after they’d settled in a house on a nondescript street Alfie doesn’t bother to learn the name of, London would have reinvented itself thrice over in the same amount of time Birmingham has stubbornly remained to stay unchanged.

For one, Alfie still doesn’t understand the way the locals all speak, and he doesn’t understand the way they all dress and behave, either. It’s a big city, but it’s sleepy and slow, and the days move like honey dripping from a spoon. He doesn’t understand what they all eat, although it’s not much different from London. But where everything in London was exciting and interesting and new, and allowed Alfie to parade around like he owned the place and understood its every nook and cranny, Birmingham is old and dull and makes Alfie feel like an idiot for even entertaining the idea that he’d ever fit in.

But—and there’s always a but in every sentence, isn’t there— _But,_ Birmingham has Tommy Shelby sat sulking behind his little register in a record shop tucked away in a corner street, and Alfie begins to understand his purpose in this beaten down place, after all. 

_____

The 11th of January brings with it rain and gloom and Tommy fleeing towards the docks, away from the centre of the city.

Alfie follows him there after asking for his whereabouts. Tommy’s aunt, who Alfie doesn’t yet know the name of, silently points towards a direction and shuts herself in with dark circles under eyes. She’d left Alfie standing there in the misty rain, staring at the chipping paint on the doorway before deciding to try for another knock. This time, a little boy opens it up. Alfie recognises him from the one time he’d caught Tommy in the barber’s.

“Hello,” Alfie greets, stuffing his hands in his coat pockets. The boy cranes his neck up to meet Alfie’s eyes, barely shy. Tommy’s youngest brother; a little trooper in the making. “I’m here for Tommy.”

Alfie’s always here for Tommy. Every day, without fail, he’s here for Tommy. Everyone in the household has opened up the doors for him by now, except this little tyke here, and Tommy, who’s more often than not holed up in his room. Alfie doesn’t know any of their names except Ada’s, and only because she’d caught them spooning in Tommy’s bed the night after they got nearly black-out drunk.

Alfie only regrets that night because of the drinks. He hates drinking, and he’s not quite sure why he decided it was an okay time to start downing drink after drink. But, and this is a maybe, it was because Tommy was sat next to him, and Alfie is human, after all. He’s weak for a pair of pretty blue eyes and the boy that they come with. 

“He’s not here.” Tommy’s little brother looks up at Alfie with big, soulful eyes, a little lamb. He’s a cute kid, really, but he doesn’t look much like Tommy. It makes Alfie wonder things. “He went down to the docks.”

“Right,” Alfie nods. He doesn’t know where the docks are. “Thanks.”

The kid nods solemnly, looking far more older than he ought to be. He’s a kid, after all, still in primary. Alfie’s wondering goes to darker places. “Be careful with him?” The kid asks. “Tommy’s not feeling good today.”

Alfie nods, unsure of what else to say. He’s not very good with children, although his sister’s got one in the works right now. “What’s your name?” he asks, instead. 

“Finn,” Finn says and then begins to shuffle back towards the dark entrance of the house. It’s then that Alfie notices that all the lights in the house are shut off, as if in mourning. But for what?

Alfie nods, shoves his hands further down his pockets. He has the sudden urge to rummage around for a toffee he doesn’t have and hand it over to Finn. “I’ll be seeing you, then.”

“Bye,” Finn says, and peeks out the side of the door one last time before shutting it with a soft click. Beyond the barrier, Alfie hears the soft padding of feet despite the noise of the sky up above, and imagines that Finn’s gone to the kitchen to have lunch, or play with his toys in the living room.

_____

Alfie slips down towards the docks a little after four in the afternoon. The sky’s still blaring on, the rain growing stronger by the minute. The wind whips his jacket around, nearly lifting the hat he’d pilfered off of a street vendor in London off of his head.

He sees Tommy hunched over in a boat, nothing to protect him from the elements except a flimsy suit that looks like it belongs in a funeral, too tight and too black. Tommy looks like a ghost in it.

Alfie is silent throughout. He turns up the collar of his coat to stop the rain slashing at his face, and shuffles over towards the boat, nearly falling into the water when he tries to get in. The boat rocks angrily, the waters of the canals violent with the rain hitting them every which way, but Tommy takes no note of such things. He keeps his back towards Alfie and doesn’t speak at all.

“Hey!” Alfie calls out against the sky’s rage. “Hey, Tommy!”

Tommy doesn’t turn, but curls up further into himself. Alfie’s never seen him like this, and Alfie’s seen Tommy in many different ways.

“Fuck,” Alfie mutters when he nearly tips the boat over again. As if by chance, he finally manages to stumble into the shelter, and works his way through the various items scattered on the floor to where Tommy sits. Alfie stops, looming over him. He sees the white nape of Tommy’s neck, clean like freshly fallen snow, and wet from the rain. Alfie has the desire to put his hand there and hold on; Tommy looks like he’s going to fall apart if it doesn’t happen. But Alfie doesn’t, and instead looms further into Tommy’s space. “Hey, why don’t we go over inside?”

There’s a moment where Alfie thinks Tommy won’t say anything and will continue to just sit there like the world’s coming to an end around him and he’s resigned himself to the Fates. But Tommy shifts, moving so he can look up and over his shoulder to meet Alfie’s eyes. Alfie’s breath hitches in his throat. Tommy looks like a _wreck_.

His cheeks are tinged a feverish pink, his eyes red and watery and oh so _blue_. He’s been crying, his lips move in minuscule trembles, like he’s going to break down again any moment. This is not the Tommy Alfie has become used to, it is not the Tommy that matches Alfie wit for wit and drinks and smokes like the shit’s running out fast. This is not the Tommy that sighs sweetly when Alfie kisses him anywhere, and likes to curl up under the sheets after and stare into nothing, a hand pressed over the place where Alfie’s heart beats a rhythm. This is a different, rare breed of Tommy, and it deeply unnerves Alfie to finally meet him.

Alfie, for the first time in his life, is at a loss for words. He is truly, finally speechless.

Tommy keeps on looking up at him with his watery blue eyes, and Alfie doesn’t know what to do. He thinks about maybe gathering Tommy in his arms and hugging him, but that won’t do. Tommy is rarely affectionate outside a bed. He thinks about calling Tommy kitten just to see if Tommy will get riled up the way he does whenever Alfie calls him that, but he decides against it. The last thing Tommy Shelby needs when he looks a nudge away from bursting into tears, is to be called kitten. It’s just not the thing to do.

The sky grows darker, the rain grows heavier and the wind howls like there’s no tomorrow. Alfie Solomons stands there even with the boat rocking the way it is in the choppy waters of the canal, and tries to figure out what to do next. Tommy keeps on staring at him with eyes that won’t tell what he wants.

Alfie decides that the only course of action in such dire circumstances is to plop down on the wet deck of the boat and just sit there, next to Tommy. He does it, it’s the only thing he can do when he can’t speak, and Tommy turns back to stare at the empty.

Alfie sits with his legs sprawled in front of him, slouched over so his hands stay between his thighs. His coat spreads around him, the too big of an overcoat he’d gotten for a birthday present two years ago that still doesn’t quite fit him today. Tommy stays silent next to him, looking fragile and breakable, knees tucked against his chest and his arms wrapped tight around him, the bottom half of his face pressed in that safe place so only the top half—the blue eyes that make Alfie want to raze the bloody world to the ground, and the damp hair that curls cutely around his ears and forehead—can be seen.

“Hey,” Alfie tries again after some time. It’s uncomfortable, staying silent for too long. He wrings his fingers together, picking at the fabric of his pants. “You okay there?”

In hindsight, it’s an incredibly stupid thing to say. Alfie regrets the words the minute they come out of his mouth, but it’s too late to shove them back down. He cringes, waiting for Tommy to yell or scream or do _something_ , anything. But Tommy stays quiet and broken.

“Hey,” Alfie repeats, firmer. He gathers his bearings and tries to be brave. He’s been here before, he knows what to do. After all, not just a couple of months ago, this was him. But instead of sobbing his heart out in a boat in the middle of rain, he was out hiding in the ruins of a house that hadn’t been fixed after the Blitz Alfie wasn’t around to witness. “Hey—look, Tommy. You’ve got to say something, yeah? You can’t just sit here forever, it’s just not right.”

Tommy keeps quiet. Alfie wants to shake him till his head’s loose and topples down to the wet floor. Fucking hell, why can’t Tommy _speak_? Why can’t he speak when Alfie could? What is the point of having a pretty mouth without using it for more than sucking cock and kissing?

He’s getting frustrated, he knows. Whenever Alfie gets frustrated, he has violent urges he never follows through because he’s not an idiot during those times. He knows there’s limits, and imagining hurting someone is different from actually hurting them. And, besides, it’s _Tommy_. He’s the only living boy in Birmingham Alfie knows he’ll never lay a hand on.

“Tommy fucking Shelby, now you listen to me right here,” Alfie says with as much command he can muster up in his flustered state. Tommy stays put, but Alfie sees the subtle tilt of his head, and he can tell Tommy’s peering at him through the corners of his eyes. Alfie soldiers on. “I don’t know why you’re sat here in this godforsaken boat in this godforsaken rain in this godforsaken suit, but you need to get inside before you catch your death of a cold. There’s a time and place for mourning, and now is not the place but it is the time so we can find you another place so you can have the time to mourn. _Do you understand_?”

His words don’t make sense. They never do. Alfie’s been told he can’t articulate what he wants without throwing in fifty other mindless things into the mix. It’s part of the charm, usually; Alfie likes to imagine the way he speaks is one of the reasons he drew Tommy in. Whenever he speaks, Tommy listens and does the bidding if there is a bidding. Like right now, and isn’t that just neat? Tommy’s turned again to stare at Alfie with his ice-coloured eyes and does an imperceptible nod of his head. Alfie feels like rejoicing towards the heavens.

“Okay,” Alfie huffs, suddenly struck by the odd sensation of feeling like his mother. His heart clenches at the thought of her, but he shoves it down in order to get up and haul Tommy off to a warmer hiding spot. “C’mon, then. We’ll find another place for you to sulk in peace.”

Tommy takes his offered hand, no hesitancy there, and gives another small nod. He looks so fragile, Alfie wants to wrap him up in a blanket and hide him away from the rest of the world, secure in a warm bed and with Alfie there to take care of him. It’s an ache that rests in the bottom of his stomach, a gradual heat of a thing that grows hotter when Tommy presses their sides together, head ducked. Alfie’s never seen him like this before, he’s not sure what to make of it.

_____

He leads Tommy to his house, up the front steps, across the living room and up the spiralling staircase to Alfie’s bedroom near the end of the house that overlooks the garden Alice’s husband, Jim, has been working on.

He makes Tommy strip, bare arsed with his pink cock Alfie’s sucked too many times to count hanging between his thighs, and leads him towards the bathroom naked. No one’s home: Alice and Jim are both at work and Cyril’s napping on the living room couch.

He gives Tommy a bath. He runs the water with Tommy sitting on the toilet seat, still looking like a kicked puppy. Once the water’s to a satisfactory heat, and the bathroom mirror’s fogged up so everything is just blurry colours, he takes Tommy by the arm and gently helps him lower down to the water. Tommy lets out a hiss of breath when he’s fully submerged up to his shoulders, a full body shudder wracking through him as the cold disperses from his body. Alfie strips his clothes off, and joins Tommy to warm up.

They stay sitting there for a while, across from one another. Tommy won’t look at him, gaze fixated on the tops of his knees peeking out from the water and the bubbles, but Alfie looks to his heart’s content. Colour is returning to Tommy’s skin and some of the tension in Alfie’s shoulders loosens. 

When the water begins to cool, Alfie speaks up again. “Do you want to talk about it?” he asks. He knows to ask this because his sister did it to him when he’d been in the same position, and he’d felt better at the end. It’s easier to share the burden of your sorrows than hoard them close to you. “Like, you know. It’d be nice to share what’s got you caught up in a literal storm.”

Tommy finally lifts his head up, looking perfectly exhausted, and Alfie sees how red his eyes truly are in the better lighting of the bedroom. Fuck. This is bad. 

“I don’t know,” Tommy finally speaks, voice hoarse and dry. “I don’t— I don’t _know._ ”

Alfie frowns. “Of course you know. You just don’t want to admit it out loud—and that’s _fine._ But it will help, I think.”

Tommy stares at him, shoulders slumped. All of a sudden, Alfie feels like a shrink. He thinks about making Tommy lie down on the bed and sit next to him and make Tommy speak out about all that’s bothering him. But a shrink Alfie is not, he’s just an eighteen-year-old kid. He hasn’t even got a job, unlike Tommy. Alfie has the sudden deep-rooted horror of being too old for his skin after all the shit his past has put him through settle into his very bones. He feels like a millennium  old. He’s sure Tommy feels the same.

Finally, as if a wall has been broken down, Tommy breaks down, too. “My mum died today.”

Alfie blinks, shocked. His hands, that had begun rubbing at the arch of Tommy’s foot—which Alfie had discreetly placed on his lap under the water, with Tommy not breathing a thing about it—stops.

“I’m sorry,” Alfie says lamely. He wants to say his mum died, too, not just a year and a half ago. But the words are stuck in his throat. “I didn’t know. Um, when’s the funeral?”

Stupid thing to say, really. But Alfie seems to be on the train of stupid things to say today. Tommy looks at him and gives a limp shrug. “It’s her anniversary. She, um, she died on this date.”

“Oh,” Alfie says, heart pounding. He feels nervous. Tommy is well and truly on his path of breaking, then, if Alfie doesn’t halt the car soon. “I’m sorry.”

Tommy looks at him for a long while, lips turned down and a bone deep exhaustion etched all over his face. “You wouldn’t have known,” he says, sensible. Tommy Shelby is rarely sensible. “I—I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Right,” responds Alfie. Tentatively, he begins to rub the arch of Tommy’s foot again with his thumb. “But now I do.”

“Yes,” Tommy says. “Now you do.” 

This explains everything. The refuge in the docks, the broken-doll fragility of Tommy’s movements, the way his eyes look haunted and seem to stare beyond what they can see. Alfie decides they should get out of the bath. 

Tommy goes quiet again. He allows Alfie to rub him down with a towel, and watches Alfie do the same to himself. He allows Alfie to dry his hair too, and Alfie does so carefully, feeling if he were to be too rough Tommy’s neck would snap in half and nothing would come out of his body. Tommy is a hollow man, right now, his hurt echoes deep. Alfie feels that hurt inside of him, too, and his mother’s death comes rearing back. 

They both walk back naked to Alfie’s bedroom. The room’s toasty warm now, what with the heater Alfie had turned on before the bath. Silently, Alfie hands Tommy a pair of briefs and pyjamas, and slips into his own. Tommy stands there, after, swaying to and for like a leaf in the wind. Alfie takes him by the shoulders and sits him down on the bed. 

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and Tommy nods, staring at his feet. 

Alfie hurries down to the kitchen on jelly legs, scrambling in the cabinets. They both need something in them right now, even if it’s just water and a couple of biscuits. When he trudges up the stairs again, he feels weak all over, on the verge of falling down and cracking his head open. His body isn't tense, but dangerously loose, like he's not in control of his movements. 

In the bedroom, Tommy is sat where Alfie’d left him. He doesn’t look up when Alfie sits down, but takes the glass and biscuits anyways, when they’re handed to him. 

“You should eat them,” Alfie says, his voice unfamiliar to his ears. “It’ll help.”

Tommy nods again, and begins to eat in a slow, dead manner. Alfie doesn’t know what to do, feeling helpless like he did all those months ago, and just eats his own biscuits too, forcing them down despite the tightness in his throat. 

When they’re finished, Alfie puts the glasses on the night stand and gets up properly on the bed. He tugs Tommy along with him, slipping under the covers and making sure that both of them are underneath before shutting off his lamplight. Tommy’s breathing is harsh and quick paced, Alfie reaches out with the pads of his fingers and feels tears on Tommy’s cheek. Alfie feels like he should be crying too, now that he’s remembering his mother, but there are no tears. It should hurt, but it doesn’t. Sometimes, for some people, tears don’t happen and that doesn’t mean they’re not hurting inside—his mother said that to him once. Alfie still remembers the way she felt like when she hugged him, and the floral perfume smell of her. He wraps his arms around Tommy and squeezes, pushing them together so they’re pressed head to toe.

“It’s alright,” Alfie says. “It’s fine to cry. It doesn’t make you any less of who you are.”

Tommy sobs louder, this wet, heaving thing that makes Alfie want to break something apart. But he just squeezes tighter and buries his face in Tommy’s damp curls. They’ll work through the complications later. Right now, all they both need is touch. 

Outside, the rain is nothing but a distant memory, the pitter patter of it and the watery grey gloom of the afternoon sky melting into the shadows of his room. The world is ever still, holding its breath, as Alfie and Tommy lay curled up under the covers, letting out things that have long since passed, dead and buried, but haunting still. 


End file.
